I.3. Dravidian

This Proto-Dravidian version of the fable has been reconstructed using mainly lexicon from Burrow and Emeneau (1984) and morphosyntax from Andronov (2003).

kori-m ivuḷi-ku-m

kori boc-ku e-ā

ivuḷi-k-aṉ kāṇt-āṉ;

atuviṇtēr-aṉ īẓipu,

atuperumōr-aṉ,

atuāḷ caṭṭ kuditu.

kori ivuḷi-k-aṉ jant-āṉ:

“gunḍeṉnō-aṉ,

āḷkāṇpu ivuḷi-k-aṉ lātu.”

ivuḷi-k jant-ār: “āl korī!

gunḍemnō-aṉ kāṇpu,

āḷ, jāḷ,kori-k-a boc-āl

tāṉ veku cavaḷi-ṉ vān,

kori-k-a boc-ku āṉ-ā.”

itu ālalkori vāj-kku ōḍ-āṉ.

Note: Proto-Dravidian features are sometimes difficult to reconstruct for an old, common period. It is believed that, during the earliest reconstructible stage, there were no cases, just postpositions which only later became bound to the noun and lost their internal etymological source. For this version of the fable, the accusative in *-(a)ṉ (probably a late Proto-Dravidian development) is also used, and reconstructed ‘case’ markers are thus also postponed to the general plural marker, and they are (like auxiliary verbs) marked in the text with a dash; but grammatical(ised) endings, like participial endings, are not.